APE TO MAN "In Non-Catholic Schools"

SIR,-The following must not pass unchallenged or your readers will remain misinformed on a question that really does concern Catholics since the publication of Hamani Generis. C. H. Morris says: " I doubt if any State School biology teachers are so ignorant as to slate that man has evolved from apes."
But this is the current teaching not only in the State Schools, but by the majority of scientists, In a short letter I can't give quotations and references, but here are the facts. The B.B.C., the newspapers, cheap manuals and learned books have, for the last ten years, reiterated the fact that Dr. Broom (and now Dr. Leaky) have put the apes back in our family tree. The Natural History Museum and the British Exhibition have models and pictures that impress this vividly on the public. Because of the size of their brains and their two-legged stance, Dr. Broom said about his small apes: "They are entitled to be called men." Prof. Strauss (U.S.A.) won't have this, and looks to less special ised creatures. Most scientists still expect to find a tree-dwelling ancestor, but Prof. Wood-Jones seeks "a toddler." Dr. I.eaky's new-found Kenya apes ran on all-fours, but as they had no brow-ridges nor simian shelf in the jaw, he thinks them the ancestors of Homo (and so has thrown the Pekin and Java " apemen " out of the family tree). Dr. Kaelin, in his paper on Man's Origin at the Pax Romana Congress (1950) favoured Dr. Broom's apes.
An account of this paper occupies 2+ columns of a recent issue of The Guardian, in which it is regrettable that this part of the paper is stressed, whereas Dr. Kaelin's strikingly original paragraphs on man's unique anatomy were not sufficiently emphasised. (Possibly the correspondent is not a scientist and did not realise the great importance of this part of the paper-both biologically and metaphysically). The long discussion on evolution which has been running did not disclose all these new tentative ideas, nor explain which of the old claims have recently been discarded. The ape is back more definitely than ever (a new book by Dr. Leaky is announced in Science News); and yet really constructive opposite ideas (similar to Vailleton's) are now offered, too.
1 have gathered a lot of information on the writing (and propaganda) about evolution. If your readers keep an eye on your advertisement columns during the next few weeks, they will see details of a book in which I give a full account. with quotations and references. Or they can write to me for the descriptive leaflet (ready soon).
Vera Barclay.
The Midway, Felpham, Sussex.
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Recent Criticisms SIR, Dr. Rowena Lamy's interesting letter on genetics does not make it clear that this science has recently been severely criticised. The report of one such analysis may be obtained from the Victoria Institute, 12 Queen Anne's Gate, S.W.I.-a "separate" of Douglas Dewar's paper Genetics and Evolution (Is.).
This paper was submitted to members and Fellows of the Institute before being read, and their comments published. They include the following front Dr. E. S. Russell (the distinguished author of The Interpretation of Development and Heredity and The Directiveness of Organic Activities: " Mr. Dewar's critical account of the Gene theory is most valuable; it is up-to-date and brings out very clearly the weakness and limitations of the Gene hypothesis. His criticism of Goldschmidt's theory of the repatterning of chromosomes is devastating."
The Baroness Wentworth. from her great experience of horse-breeding noted "how misleading a study of genes and chromosomes may be in practical breeding where theory is sometimes flatly contradicted. . . . The more I consider it the more fantastic I think the conclusions as to horse evolution." While no less an authority on this subject than the Swedish botanist, Professor Heribert Nilsson writes: "My attitude to the Evolution question agrees entirely with that of Mr. Dewar."
As Mr. Dewar is one of your correspondents your readers may like to know that he has received this valuable support in one of the latest scientific controversies.
In a previous correspondence, one of your learned contributors said: "As for Heribert Nilsson, I am surprised to learn that he does not hold to the theory (of evolution) his papers don't give one that impression-far from it." It seems that the ideas of evolutionists evolve.
Manfred Lowengard, D.Phil.